Featured articles- “top 5 of the week,” etc.

Hello!
I’m making a news website for my university with WordPress, and want to know how to make a little magazine-style panel at the top of the index.php for 5 featured articles of the week. There would be one big box with the week’s main featured article and a picture, next to four smaller boxes containing less-important featured articles to it’s right, with the sidebar still to the right of both. Here’s a quick MS Paint mock-up of what I have in mind:

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/1185/mockuph.png

I’ve got most of the webiste theme complete, I’ve just been working off of the basic Default/Kubrick theme. Besides this, and installing some little plugins, i’m nearly complete!